Stop wasting time online

With all the distractions online, it's no wonder many of us are left wondering where the working day goes.

Whether others are to blame by bombarding you with emails and instant messages, or you just get engrossed in your favourite forum, the result is the same, wasted hours.

If you don't want to fritter away your day then you need to manage your time.

Firstly, take control of incoming interruptions. Studies have shown that when we are distracted from a task it takes us around 15 minutes to regain our full concentration. If you stop whatever you're doing to read your emails as soon as they ping into your inbox, then don't.

The majority of emails can wait. If, like me, you use Outlook, you may have a desktop notification that pops up to tell you new mail has arrived. It's hard to ignore, but you can switch it off by going to Tools > Options > Email Options > Advanced Email Options and deselecting "Display new mail on desktop".

Allocate set times to check emails throughout the day and stick to them.

Likewise with applications such as Yahoo!, Messenger and Skype: don't stay logged in all day, you're just inviting interruptions.

I find it almost physically impossible to ignore instant messages so I save it for when I've got time to chat.

Social media sites are the fastest growing sector when it comes to where we spend our time online. So if you just can't drag yourself away from Facebook and Twitter, then at least make sure you turn off any automatic notifications they send.

The chances are you don't need to know the instant someone writes on your Facebook wall.

Save it for when you actually visit the site.

You can manage notifications in most social networking sites via your account settings.

Give yourself a time limit for general web-surfing. I have two forums and two blogs I like to visit daily to see what's new but they can suck up the hours.

I give myself 20 minutes to visit all four sites, read any updates, make any comments and so forth.

Once the 20 minutes is up, it's back to work. You can use the clock on your PC to time it, but I like www.online-stopwatch.com where you can enter a time and it counts it down.

If you really don't know where your online time is going then try www.pageaddict.com. It shows you how long you spend on each site you visit. It can be surprising to see your web habits broken down like this and may give you new insight into where the hours are going.

If you're really struggling to discipline yourself, try working offline for periods of the day.

Depending on your situation you could sit away from your PC, or simply disable your internet access. You may be surprised by how much work you get done.

- © Fairfax NZ News